Diva Las Vegas

Doin' it diva style to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Liesl's 21st Birthday!!




Doin' it diva style to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Liesl's 21st Birthday!!

Mia bella

Mia at 2 months. First time in a highchair.

Putting Some Money in the Bank

Nothing beats a post ride brew. We were celebrating Sheryl's (one of our honorees) 5th year re-birthday since her stem cell transplant. Notice the post workout "glow" (ok maybe it was the babywipes we used to wipe our faces off with).

Please visit my page at http://www.active.com/donate/tntgsf/tntgsfECloern to make a donation. The deadline of Feb. 20 is fast approaching!
Gotta love SAG (support and gear). Yes, they really did have peanut M&Ms.
Some of the beautiful scenery we spotted along the way. It's nice to take your mind away from the pain, oh I'm sorry, "discomfort".
I think I am falling in love with the North Bay. We saw tons of horses throughout the route. I have to admit, I was tempted to hop on one of their backs during the climbs.
That's me in the back looking spacey.... hey it was early in the morning!
Coach Bumpster! She got 2 flats during our ride. Luckily for us, she's super speedy at changing them.

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It’s been a while, so I’ll try to recap the best I can. Things have been fairly busy at work, and as usual I can’t find enough time to do all the things I want to do + sleep. I think I averaged 5.5/6 hrs every night last week, which just isn’t enough for me, and I always feel like I’m missing out on something I’d like to do. For the first time since I’ve started training, I went straight home after work on Friday and hit the sack for a full night’s sleep. Good thing too since I was up at 5:30 AM to pick up Sheryl and head out to Fairfax.

We found the meet spot and heard Dr. Jim Taylor, a sports psychologist speak. He was a very good speaker, motivational and inspirational. From there we were on our bikes, headed out to “put some money in the bank”- a phrase Dr. Taylor uses as a metaphor for training for the big day. He says there’s no overdraft protection on the big day so you want to make sure you’ve got enough money put away (i.e. training) to get you through the event.

This week’s ride was by far the most difficult for me. Ironically, since I did everything right- sleep, drink water etc… I wonder if it’s because I didn’t have my magical burrito for dinner on Friday night. Hmmm. Interesting. We did just under 40 miles and faced lots of adversity (cold, wind, flat tires, lemon bicycles- you name it!). I was really struggling at one point and couldn’t understand why it was so hard for me to go 8mph on what looked like a flat stretch.

3.5 hours and 2,200 calories later as I was walking my bike through the parking lot, I noticed that my back brake was rubbing my rim. I’d had this problem at the Presidio ride, but it was fixed after I had my bike tunes up… looks like it started again. We hit up the pub across the way after the ride to celebrate Sheryl’s 5th re-birthday. I got home just after 5 and was passed out watching TV by 7:30.

On Sunday I woke up early and headed out to the barn. It’s been a little bit hard to see Pokey as much as I would like. It was a beautiful day, and some of the girls were putting away jumps in the arena, so I decided to take her for a walk around the property to warm her up a little, soak up some sunshine, and wait for the area to clear. All was going well, I was mozying (how DO you spell that?) along appreciating the dry sunny day when I almost got dumped! Pokey decided that the parked motorcycle across the street was going to eat her so she dropped, spun, and (it took me a second to register this) started to run off with me! I don’t know why, but I had to laugh at this. Thank goodness I didn’t eat dirt. It’s always a humbling experience to be reminded that, if they wanted to, they could toss you in an instant. So I made a safe arrival to the indoor arena and gave her booty a workout. I had forgotten that with the weather, it’d been 2+ weeks since she’d been able to turn out and play.
I finished up there around noon, raced home, and was out of my breeches into equally sexy apparel (hello butt padded spandex!) and on my bike. I wanted to test out the ride from my house to Palo Alto thinking I could bike there, take Cal Train into S.F. and then ride from the ball park to the office one or 2 days a week (provided I get my brake situation squared away). It takes about 45 min. to bike over the bridge and isn’t all that bad. I just need to figure out how to get to work once in S.F.

I finished up my weekend with dinner at Maggianos with the Jed, Holly, Kendall, and Mia bella and am ready for a new week. I think I’m goanna try out my sweet trainer tonight and work on some flyers to post for fund raising. I received another $150 this weekend (thank you Auntie Beth- again! And Kathy who’s been doing TNT for the past 5 years). That’s all for now.

Thanks Jennifer for the butt shot.

Christmas Eve 2007

Ok, so this is obviously a little belated, but oh well, better late than never, right? Above you'll see Kendall and Al. I'm not sure if I should black bar his privates or not. Haha. Below: the proud grandparents (of granddaughter and grandson...)
Check out Jed's sweet sweater!
Mia belle.
I hope to write a more thorough update soon.